


Like a storm in the desert

by middlemarch



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: Angst, Domestic, F/M, Family, Jonah was a good dad, Kid Fic, Parent-Child Relationship, Post 6x02, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:47:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29041854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She and Adam had worked out the custody arrangements so easily, she'd expected clear sailing. She'd had a lot of expectations about the move and the job, at least, was living up to them. Home, making one, keeping one, wasn't as manageable.
Relationships: Adam Dubanowski/Amy Dubanowski, Amy Dubanowski/Jonah Simms, Amy Sosa/Jonah Simms
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	Like a storm in the desert

“I want Dada,” Parker said, rubbing his eyes and then rubbing his wet face on the shoulder of the dry-clean only blouse that she’d known was a mistake as soon as she cut off the tags. He was a little hoarse, _pony_ Jonah would have called it, giving her that crooked smile that meant he was amused and wanted her to be, that he was prepared to stay up with Parker if she crashed out or Emma had a sudden, mall-related emergency. He would have looked equally comfortable pacing up and down the hallway as in the second-hand glider that squeaked if you didn’t balance just right. He would have stocked the medicine cabinet with something besides generic ibuprofen tablets and the tub of Vicks and he most definitely wouldn’t have made a fuss about getting someone to cover his shift because there was no way Parker could go to daycare in the morning and Amy had that meeting with the Pacific Northwest guys and was going to have to brace herself for the onslaught of comments about how sunny it was and how shitty the coffee was outside of Seattle. 

“Mami, want Dada,” Parker repeated and Amy knew he didn’t mean Adam. When she was in St. Louis, Adam had taken the kids on weekends and picked up Parker on most, but not all, Tuesdays. Whatever claim he’d had to hands-on parenting with Emma was not one he, or anyone else, could possibly make for his relationship with Parker, whom he had tried, unsuccessfully, to get to call him Big Papi (the rag on Jonah’s height hadn’t been lost on Amy but Jonah had just waved it away.) Now that they were in California, Adam was a face on a Zoom meeting, a destination for some indeterminate time when vacations and school breaks were occupied by plane flights without pre-quarantines. He sent Parker clothes that were too small or oddly big and toys he wasn’t interested in; Emma got gift cards because Adam recognized he had no idea what a sixteen year old girl wanted.

“Mami’s here,” Amy said, patting Parker’s back. She was hoping to forestall a full-on meltdown, the kind that had made the first week in California worth blocking out of her memory if that had been humanly possible. The sound of his shrieks had etched themselves into her brain as if he’d used sulfuric acid. “It’s okay, baby, Mami’s here, I got you.”

“Dada?” Parker said and this time, she could hear how it had become a question. How she wasn’t enough, not when Parker had yet another ear infection or when he woke up with a nightmare or came into her bed far too early wanting banana pancakes and a sip of Dada’s magic green drink, which was usually far more leafy green vegetable than Amy was able to coax him to eat. _I guess you’ll know where to find me_ , Jonah had said in the moment after she had broken his heart. But she couldn’t bring herself to believe he could have ever meant for her to call him now and tell him she didn’t know what to do to get Parker to settle down after the shower hadn’t worked or the extra episode of Peppa Pig. To ask him if it was okay to put him on speaker and would he sing that song, the one Parker called _night inna forest_ , to hear the pause before he agreed and then his baritone, surprisingly untroubled, unaffected by the phone, the distance she’d put between them.

“You fill up my senses/ Like a night in a forest/ Like the mountains in springtime/ Like a walk in the rain…”

She tried humming it for Parker but he gave her the kind of dark, withering look she wouldn’t have expected until he was fourteen, so she gave up and stumbled through “Remember Me” from Coco. It was only going to buy her a few hours, ones she hoped she could sleep through without a dream of Jonah walking towards her in the warehouse. A dream where she’d said yes and learned, before it was too late, that she’d meant it.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from John Denver's "Annie's Song."


End file.
